Migrants trapped in the jungle of Panama by the US border 'closure'

Fernando José Gutiérrez cares little about statistics.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
19 October 2022 Wednesday 02:30
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Migrants trapped in the jungle of Panama by the US border 'closure'

Fernando José Gutiérrez cares little about statistics. He already knows firsthand that people flee en masse from his country, Venezuela, for the same reasons of misery and fear as him, his wife Adriana and their daughters Dana and Asley (two and one years old) led them to the dangerous adventure of more than two months to reach the United States.

Sitting in the sun, a few weeks ago, next to the municipal shelter in the Bronx where they have been welcomed – they are part of the 17,000 sent to New York on the buses chartered by the Republican governors of Texas and Arizona – what worries him the most right now is to calm the little girl's tantrum. "She's hungry," she says.

It is clear that this is not the end of their journey, but the beginning of another that they have reached with one hand in front and the other behind.

"When we leave the jungle, we leave without a dollar," emphasizes the head of the family, who is in his early twenties. The jungle is the Darién Gap or simply Darién, an obligatory passage through Panama for those who undertake the land route towards their American dream.

The transit to reach this goal, according to the testimony of those who achieved it, is strewn (in addition to natural hazards such as poisonous snakes), thieves, kidnappers, sexual abusers, a whole gallery of criminals who want to take advantage of the poor . Not the case with this family. They did not steal what they had saved or borrowed from their acquaintances.

“The river practically took away the 3,600 dollars we had for the trip,” says Gutiérrez, recalling the experience in the jungle. “There was a flood of the current and I did not pay attention to the bag with the money. I had to save my daughters”, he stresses.

It was almost at the beginning, in the early stages. But now they are here and he believes that it has been worth overcoming all those tribulations. Hence, it does not matter much to him to know about those figures or statistics from the UN, among which Gutiérrez and his family appear as part of the 7.1 million Venezuelans who have abandoned, or rather fled, their country since 2015 .

Seen from the perspective of the new immigration regulation of the Biden Government, which has copied the "cruel policy of Donald Trump", in qualification of the current president when he was a candidate for the White House, the Gutiérrez may even feel lucky. They entered through the Texas border, requested refuge, so their case is pending prior to the legal modification, and a Catholic organization endorsed them.

Instead, today thousands of compatriots are trapped in Darién, not knowing what to do or how to do it in the face of the border closure. There is also the American nightmare. Many who are taking the step or have just completed it have been left in limbo. They beg to get out of there but they don't know how or in what direction.

Faced with the increase in the number of Venezuelans arriving at the US-Mexico border and the proximity of the legislative elections in November, in which conservatives use immigration as a weapon to gain control of Congress, Biden has adopted the solution of its predecessor. He consists of applying the so-called Title 42, which, due to a health emergency, prevents these migrants, who are escaping from the Caracas regime, from requesting refuge at all when stepping on US territory.

Any Venezuelan who enters illegally from Mexico or Panama will be immediately expelled and denied the right to asylum. Only a maximum of 24,000 will be welcomed at US airports.

The Biden administration thus takes a radical turn, after fighting in the courts the so-called Title 42 when Trump applied it and after criticizing the Republican governors who dehumanized migrants by putting them on planes or buses as political pawns.

Crossing the Darién takes five to nine days, say those who have achieved it. Not a few report that they saw people die. In Bajo Chiquito, Panama's exit point from the jungle, they receive an average of 1,500 migrants daily, but there are days that exceed 2,000, explains Efe based on official data.

So far in 2022, 187,644 passersby – 80% Venezuelans but there are other nationalities, such as Ecuadorians – crossing the jungle. And that is only the first danger of this path.